BARS
BOM JARDIM and XIBA
Manoel do Carmo Monteiro da Silva (Xiba)
REPRESENTATIVE
COMMUNITY
good garden - barcarena - para
"My dream, what I thought long term, is already happening right now"
LINK WITH THE EARTH
“My father was a rubber tapper and açaí and cocoa farmer. We worked together cutting rubber for many years and I learned a lot from him. My mother worked in the fields. I mainly learned what to eat and how to make what she brought. I have a lot of knowledge with the forest. I know the work with agriculture, the things that are in the middle of the forest: Curupira, Uiara, who on the other hand people call Iara. That exists… Mother nature shows a lot. I know many herbs, trees and vines here in my area, because each area is an area, each forest is a forest. Elsewhere, if I arrive in an area of solid ground, I will not know it”.
“When I met De Mendes, cocoa became a job for me, but with a different perspective. We just did the harvesting, the breaking and we didn't have all that care. Today I see that it has to be harvested in a good way, already thinking that it will give a good fermentation. When you get home, it's time to break it, also done very carefully so as not to cut the seeds (because it's only almonds after it's fermented), and so on, even at the time of drying, always with great care”.
RELATIONSHIP WITH MENDES
CONTRIBUTION / TRANSFORMATION
“Working with fine cocoa transforms, but as it is a lot of work, you still have to have a work education for people who are riverside people. Because I try to do it with great affection, that's how I got to this point. In the past, when my father taught me how to work with cocoa, an unfermented cocoa, it was a painful job, we had no knowledge and we just lost, lost and lost. Now it's a gain, you pay more and this has generated interest mainly for my close neighbors in the community. I trained and informed people so that I could have quality almonds”.
"The relationship with people used to the system of buying and selling unfermented cocoa, who do not know working with fine cocoa and its transforming power, has been challenging. I try to make them understand the current work process, which is profitable, gives you knowledge and takes you far away".
CONCERN/THREAT
dream/future
"It's me working with what I do, meeting people, having my name recognized... But my real dream is to transform my product to reach the final consumer. My açaí goes directly to the consumer's table, in which state or country for; and my cocoa turns into chocolate and goes to the table or to the mouth directly from the consumer. From eating my own chocolate made with my cocoa, the fruit of my fermentation work, I see that the victory I thought about in the long term is already happening".